Contrary, Again
by Arcadya
Summary: Contrary to popular opinion, Patrick Jane doesn't sleep on the couch merely because he has insomnia. Dark-ish themes, Jane-centric. Rated T for themes.


_This is a companion piece to my other fic, Contrary._

_It is not similar is tone or content, more that it explores another contradiction I perceived in the show. It is a lot more angsty than the other, I hope you enjoy.

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Contrary to popular opinion, Patrick Jane doesn't sleep on the couch (the big brown one in the middle of the Serious Crimes Unit) merely because he has insomnia.

He sleeps on the couch because it's the only place he feels truly safe. The same can be said for the little attic room he appropriated once it became clear that Hightower was a little bit in love with him. Well, not in love with _him_, more that she was in love with what his presence in the CBI did _for_ her. Obviously because his actions and wildly inappropriate suppositions and conclusions (which more often than not turn out to be correct) have the potential under the 'right' hand's guidance to gain much more glory and prestige in the upper echelon of bureaucracy; heights that Hightower would never have been able to achieve solely on her own.

Most would assume, hence the vendetta, that Patrick Jane isn't a big fan of safety. Cautiousness. And it's true, he isn't. But there's a difference between choosing to be safe, and needing to be safe.

It's not like he desires safety. He knows the cost of revenge. He's willing to pay it. It's why he oscillates so much between caring, trusting friend and insane lunatic without human feeling. He doesn't regret his choices, not really. But that doesn't mean he doesn't feel fear, most of the time it's just overrun by hatred.

He feels fear sometimes when it looks like one of his illusions, his manipulations has gone the wrong way. He can always rectify it, or Lisbon will save him, but that doesn't mean he isn't terrified that he won't make it out alive. Or that one of the team will be killed.

He is not afraid of death. It would be a relief, a release. But he doesn't want that to happen before he kills Red John. He's terrified his technique for biding time (and getting close to what the police have on Red John) will get in the way of vengeance. He can't allow that to happen. So he walks a thin line, not between criminality and justice, he walks the line between fear and hatred. They're not so very far apart. But there is a significant problem with walking that line. His actions bring about more dangerous situations than a normal person's life should hold. Even though he is affiliated with the police, his actions and words and showmanship mean that he is much closer to danger than most cops.

This is why the majority of his time is spent resting on the couch, or in the little attic. He knows he is relatively safe there.

But there is always the problem of having too much safety. He could have gone into the witness protection agency when the Bureau realized how fixated Red John is on the happenings of Patrick Jane. He could have become a Billy Bob, or James Trucker, or Elijah Jubal. But he wants that tang of fear in his life; he wants the threat of Red John (he believes he deserves it after what happened to his family). He needs the reminder that his actions and his pride have consequences, deadly consequences. Lisbon likes to pretend that he is unaware or indifferent to the consequences of his actions. He isn't. Not anymore. If anything, he knows that the consequences can be quite severe. Just ask his daughter. But for revenge, he must at least in part, be rested. He cannot allow himself to become run down. Insomnia bleeds thought from you. He can't miss the tiny clues Red John leaves for him; and him alone. He must catch them, after all it's the only way he can catch Red John.

But to rest, he needs to feel safe. He is ashamed of this response. He should be past fear by now. He should be running on hatred and vitriol alone, but he isn't. And it reflects on his choices for resting places.

His house in Malibu is surrounded by shadows, ghosts and blood. It's good for keeping the pain tight and leashed around his heart. He doesn't want to forget. He doesn't want the pain to ebb and flow away. He wants the claustrophobic feeling around his chest. He wants the dark and the horrible. He wants the shame and sadness, the pain and revenge to hang about him like an aura. He wants people to see what Red John can do; he wants people to see who you have to become to get justice. His personal understanding of justice. Lisbon and the team will never understand his version of it. They are police officers, CBI agents, after all.

It's a well acknowledged fact that Patrick Jane doesn't sleep well. He dozes, snoozes, rests, slumbers, has a little siesta, a catnap, a small lie-down, he gets some shut-eye. But he doesn't sleep. He runs on empty, all the time. It's his norm, now. He knows how important it is for killing Red John that he requires recuperation, that he needs sleep.

When he's at the Malibu house, he fitfully slumbers under a blood moon. The darkly rusting face, the caricature of a man smiling down over his head; mocking him.

When he's reclining in various hotel rooms across the state, he doesn't sleep. He barely dozes. His brain is ruminating on the case, on the facets, the facts, the people, the lies, on Lisbon, and Cho and Rigsby, Van Pelt, random officers of the law. He estimates their reactions, their choices. He wonders, and ponders and thinks. But he doesn't sleep.

When he's at the Bureau there is always the presence of someone else. There is always a sound, a movement, a person. Sometimes it seems as if the whole building itself is a presence, a welcoming, sighing, sometimes bustling presence. The couch was his refuge for the first couple of years working under Minelli, with Lisbon. As much as someone like him can work _with_ someone. He could relax, meld, and utterly sink into its plush leather and sip his tea. He liked that couch, he still does. But the closer the team get to seeing him, the real him, the harder it becomes to stay on the edge of that world.

Lisbon saw him (through him) the first. He was pleased with her intuition and foresight, if a little annoyed at her piercing gaze. But she let him be, for the most part.

Cho was probably next. But then Cho came from a disturbed background too.

Van Pelt saw the brokenness only because of her soft heart, and Rigsby wasn't too far behind.

It seems that only Lisbon understood the danger inherent in Patrick Jane. But too soon, too soon for his plans, the others realized how dangerous he is. They view him differently know, oh, they are used to him, but they trust him little, believe in him less and although growing complacent to his outrageousness they follow Lisbon's distrustful unease.

But the closer they get to Red John, the more they see of the real him. And he can't have that. They'll try to change him. Like Lisbon is already inching her way towards.

But now that Hightower's in the building, messing up his dynamic with Lisbon, he retreats even further from the team. Further from all those 'normal' people. The attic room is musty, secluded, peaceful in a disused way, he likes it up there. He knows that it's not necessarily safe either. He knows that Red John twisted minds to get close to Sam Bosco. He's not afraid of Red John trying to kill him. Not anymore, not after Red John had him in his clutches, tied to a chair, motionless and afraid. And let him live.

That isn't the way Red John wants their confrontation to go. He enjoys the game too much. The cat and mouse teasing. Patrick Jane understands the showmanship aspect of the murderer. Its why, back when things were simpler and he was unafraid, he described the evil in Red John as a cold, dark flame. Sure the imagery was nice and pleasant enough for the television folk, but it also appeased a tiny bit of Red John's pride. Maybe that was why instead of killing the whole family Red John let Patrick Jane live, perhaps it was a fitter punishment.

So he knows it's weak, and that he shouldn't care that Red John will probably one day infiltrate the CBI to kill him, and most likely the team too. He knows it's a bastardization of fragility that keeps him tethered to those few items of furniture that make him feel safe, because the feel of that brown leather, the smell of that musty attic, they equate to a certain degree of safety. One that he doesn't get anywhere else.

The leather and sounds of the team, Lisbon shuffling further away in her office, those things they mean security. They mean that Red John has to go through a whole bunch of people, before he gets to Van Pelt or Rigsby, and he doesn't even want to begin contemplating what's going to happen when Red John comes face to face with Cho, or Lisbon. This, of course, will all occur before the murderer makes it to Patrick Jane. It is probably ordained somewhere.

The smells of the attic, the light shining through unwashed windows, the knowledge that a gun lies ready and waiting also adds to the sense of security, of being safe. Not an entirely physical safety more that because of where he rests, there will be warning should Red John attempt anything.

Patrick knows that he will be safe at any of his houses; because Red John does not wish to perpetrate any frivolous maimings or killings pertaining to Mr. Jane in any mundane setting. But that does not mean he sleeps well, if anything he sleeps the worse for it.

Red John wants the showmanship, he wants the artistry, the poetry, the encompassing knowledge for law enforcement (and the dawning of understanding) when he comes the final time for Patrick Jane. Because of course, Jane understands completely that Red John's final goal is his death, among forevermore killing other people. So while he may intellectually know that no harm will come to him in the houses he owns, or the hotels he frequents, the ghosts and pasts and emotions haunt him there. While he may realize that the CBI is meant to be one of the safest places in the county, it has been proven otherwise. But the people in the CBI, they are what makes him feel even a modicum of safety, not because they love him, or desire his safety, but because they are alert to the dangers of this world. They are armed, and since their hallowed grounds have been tainted by Red John already, they are more likely to warn him of the killer's coming, some might even stand apart so that he can get his hands on the man. Not Lisbon though, she'll be the one trying to stop him. But he won't let that happen, or he'll use her desire to keep him safe against her. She'll be mad, but he can accept that.

Knowing that the team is in the building, armed and waiting, knowing that they are his first line of defense against the past, against the present and certainly against the future, Patrick knows his attic and his couch are the best places for resting.

He is safe there, not only from the physical but from the psychological too.

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_Thanks for reading, let me know you're thoughts._

_Arc_


End file.
